Hiring managers face an uphill battle. You’ve got to find good people and place them in the right roles. What should be an inspiring time for everyone involved can quickly become a long, drawn-out process.
You advertise an opening for a great position with upward mobility potential. Well, now you’ve got over 250 applications in your inbox. There’s little chance you’ll get through all of those in a day, much less a week. Plus, how do you determine which applicant will be the best fit?
Luckily, technology is on your side. Several tools can help you weed through interested candidates and update your hiring process. Here are a few ways tech can streamline your recruiting efforts.
Rely on Apps With Predictive Analytics
You might hear managers say you can’t really predict how a new hire will perform. Once they start doing their job, you can assess whether someone will work out. But artificial intelligence combined with predictive analytics challenges this assumption.
If you can identify your top performers’ qualities, skills, and behaviors, you can leverage performance analytics applications. By building predictive models with these details, artificial intelligence can screen candidates for fit. Instead of guessing or going with your gut, you’ll use more objective criteria to select applicants.
As long as you can isolate which traits make employees perform well in specific roles, you can design accurate models. The characteristics and skills you plug in may contribute to key performance indicators. However, certain qualities could also predict future engagement. With a balanced mix, you’ll take less time deciding who advances in the process and who ultimately gets the job.
Manage Skill Tests
A resume doesn’t tell a candidate’s entire story. It may be a good synopsis and starting point. Yet, you need to know more about someone than a one to two-page summary of their experience. The positions you’re trying to fill may require skills a resume can’t communicate. Furthermore, a person may possess abilities their background doesn’t indicate.
These complications may be why 56% of employers use skill tests to screen applicants. Assessments are an additional way to discover if a person has what it takes to succeed in a role. Skill-based hiring is a tool employers often use in the initial stages of the process to weed out unsuitable candidates. Tests usually screen for the basics, such as listening and typing skills for a call center agent.
High test scores might also stop companies from ruling out candidates without all the education or experience requirements. Some assessments help determine whether someone can deliver quality work or demonstrate critical thinking skills. Technology makes it easy for job seekers to complete skill-based tests at home when it’s convenient. Hiring managers also don’t always have to score the tests since apps can automate this and notify successful applicants.
Interview Potential Employees
Not every candidate makes it to the interview stage. But say you have numerous job seekers who qualify for the first round. At this point, you might not have enough slots on the calendar to fit everyone in. Additionally, you could have some out-of-town applicants in the running.
It may not be appropriate to ask them to travel or have the company foot the bill for it. Video interviews get around these time and distance constraints. You can use live video conferencing if you want to keep a personal touch. Recorded interviews are another way to use technology to screen promising candidates.
While one-way interviews are somewhat controversial, they do come with benefits. There’s more flexibility since applicants can record their answers without interrupting their regular schedules. Hiring managers also don’t fill up their days with back-to-back interviews. When there’s more than one recruiter making decisions, one-way interviews make collaboration efficient. Plus, candidates don’t have to interview twice if their background fits multiple roles.
Cover the Basics
Chatbots field questions for customer service teams, but they can do the same for HR departments. As thorough as a job posting might be, potential recruits may want to know more before they submit their applications. Maybe the hours of operation are confusing. Or, job seekers aren’t 100% sure if they need a four-year degree to apply.
While candidates deserve answers, hiring managers can’t spend all their time supplying them. Chatbot technology can save job seekers from endless phone calls, emails, and direct messages on social media. They’ll get clarity faster, confirming whether an opening makes sense for them to pursue.
You can configure chatbot software to answer frequently asked questions. But its capabilities extend to screening applicants for minimum skills and experience. By answering rounds of questions, the technology will let recruits know whether they qualify. You can even depend on chatbots to schedule interviews and stay in touch with second-choice candidates. If your top choice doesn’t pan out, you could refill the position without reposting it.
Getting Out of the Weeds
Traditional recruiting methods are time-intensive. You can’t do it alone when you’ve got several roles to fill and hundreds of eager applicants to screen. Otherwise, you might feel pressure to make rash, subjective decisions. Using effective technology to support your processes can save time while introducing more objectivity.
Tech tools, from performance analytics apps to chatbots, simplify the details. You can get out of the recruiting weeds and focus on your strategic goals. Most of all, you’ll have well-rounded, capable devices to match qualified applicants with company needs.